Brian Ashcraft

By day, 27-year-old Paul Turner was a computer programmer. By night, he played Final Fantasy XI as a Hume, hanging out with a Tarutaru named Branwen. Paul left his girlfriend for that Tarutaru and married the woman behind the avatar.

When Turner stopped playing FFXI, Vicky Teather realized how much she cared for him. "It might sound strange to people who have never played an online game," Vicky tells The Daily Mail, "but the fact he was a traditional man with values to match and was protecting me was what first drew me to him."

They had never met and never even spoken over the phone. Vicky says the initial feeling was of "shock".

Advertisement

"And I couldn't help but feel guilty as I was living with my partner. At first I tried to forget my feelings." She couldn't even send him a message, revealing her feelings.

The two finally met on Christmas Eve in 2008, and immediately hit it off in person.

"Neither of us wanted to have an affair," says Paul, "and yet the attraction in real life was as strong as it had been between our avatars." They both left their partners and began seeing each other during the weekends and, according to The Daily Mail, "dating" in FFXI. Paul and Vicky married, complete with Final Fantasy XI avatars on their wedding cake.